Personal digital assistants (hereinafter “PDAs”) are small hand-sized computers that are used for storing, manipulating, and retrieving data. Conventionally, PDA's are also provided with an operating system and pre-loaded programs, such as word processing, spreadsheet and other programs. The increasing popularity of PDA's stems from both their relatively low cost and extreme portability compared to, for example, much larger notebook computers. Many users find that for simple computing tasks during trips and other periods of being away from their larger computer devices the bulk and computing power of even a compact notebook computer are simply not needed.
A shortcoming of many PDAs is that it is cumbersome and time consuming to manually input and search through data. Manual data entry requires using a stylus to select and enter data by touching a display screen several times to arrive at a desired location. This process is somewhat time consuming and annoying when all that is desired is to quickly enter some form of information and save it for later retrieval. The problem is exacerbated because a stylus, which is small and can be easily misplaced, is required to navigate through several menus of a PDA to get to the data entry stage.